


Like a Weird Head Massage

by jseca



Series: Time and Death are Abstract in the Abyss [3]
Category: The Adventure Zone (Podcast)
Genre: Fluff, Gen, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-12
Updated: 2017-07-12
Packaged: 2018-12-01 09:46:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,200
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11483826
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jseca/pseuds/jseca
Summary: "Magnus plays guitar, it turns out.  Figures, Taako thinks.  With the rustic lumberjack, country boy vibe that he’s got going, it shouldn’t even be surprising when he picks up a (hilariously disproportionate) acoustic guitar one day and just starts to strum away."Taako discovers the magnitude of Magnus' caring personality.  Magnus plays guitar.  These two things are inexplicably related.





	Like a Weird Head Massage

**Author's Note:**

> Set before the Conservatory and the start of Magnus' duck phase.

Magnus plays guitar, it turns out.  Figures, Taako thinks.  With the rustic lumberjack, country boy vibe that he’s got going, it shouldn’t even be surprising when he picks up a (hilariously disproportionate) acoustic guitar one day and just starts to strum away, heedless of the world around him.  He isn’t bad, either, which is more surprising in Taako’s opinion, given Magnus’ proclivity for wielding giant axes or shields, or sometimes making his role as the group protector clear by using himself as a literal human shield.  He’s not someone you would immediately put down as being nimble with his hands, is the point here, but watching as he delicately moves his fingers across the fretboard yields proof of an underlying finesse beneath the brawny exterior.

There’s a faraway, nostalgia-tinted look in his eyes as Magnus fiddles around with the tuning pegs to fix a string that must be just that little bit out – not that Taako can tell.  He may have been graced with incredible cooking skills, flawless feminine beauty and formidable majicks, but he’s never quite managed to attain pitch perfection.

Lup smirks from beside him, nudging him not entirely gently in the side to bring him out of a trance he didn’t even realise he’d succumbed to.  Magnus is too deep in the melody he’s plucking to notice, thank the gods.  Taako throws a short, sharp glance her way in response to her silent goading, and she giggles, patting his shoulder softly.

Magnus had found the guitar lying by a wall in the large room they’d been given to use for the night, too far away from the Starblaster on their journey to retrieve this plane’s Light of Creation as they were.  It was always – strange.  To see things common on their home planet appear across the multiverse, uniting the cross-dimensional planes in small, tangible ways.  Food, music, language; they had gotten used to it by now, but Taako had been blown away the first time he heard Elvish in an entirely separate dimension to their own.  They’ve learnt so much on their travels.  When it’s all over, if they’re still alive, Taako thinks he’d like to go back and read Lucretia’s journals from start to finish.

The tune Magnus is playing is slow and sweet; one that would be perfect for those nights where they have to set up camp outdoors, with a wood fire burning beneath a starry sky.  And although Taako would be the first to admit that he isn’t ever much for camping, the luxury comforts of the Starblaster being far more to his tastes, even he has to admit that that image is appealing as all hell.

Magnus finishes playing with a small flourish over the strings, his hand hovering absently as he stares down at the guitar in what looks almost like reverence.  Taako can’t blame him; it’s been a while since they’ve been able to have a quiet moment like this.  He knows Magnus covets them.

“You’re good at that,” Taako says, uncharacteristically open, into the silence, causing Magnus to perceptibly start and look up at his friends, like he only that second remembered he wasn’t the sole person in the room.

“Oh, uh, thanks,” Magnus replies, his smile modestly restrained.  “S’been a while, I’m surprised I remember that much.”

“You know,” Taako starts, placing a hand under his chin and leaning forward a little.  “I wasn’t entirely sure you’d be able to make that whole thing work, but you’ve got some serious finesse in those hands.”

“This is definitely a smaller guitar than I’m used to,” Magnus says in agreement, rapping an absent hand against the hollow wood beneath his hands.  “I had one back home, it was maybe twice the size of this.”  He shrugs.  “But it’s all the same stuff, at the core of it.”

When they leave, the guitar’s owner hands it over to Magnus as a kind gesture of goodwill, claiming that they ‘never play it anyway, it was only gathering dust.’  After thanking them profusely and futilely trying to offer something in return, Magnus swings it carefully onto his back for safekeeping.  For a while, Taako wonders if he’s going to see Magnus bring it out as a makeshift weapon; it looks fairly sturdy, like it could clock someone round the head pretty good, especially in Magnus’ hands.  Hell, Magnus could turn a soft, downy pillow into a half decent melee weapon if he wanted to.  But as time goes on, he realises that, instead, Magnus is _coveting_ his gift.  He’s so careful with it, lying it down gently every time he swings it off his shoulder, making sure it isn’t being battered by the rest of the equipment he’s burdened himself with, sanding it down with makeshift materials to smooth it over.

He’s so _caring_ , even for inanimate objects like this one. 

And once Taako’s finally, (it’s only been, what, thirty cycles?) caught on to this thread of personality that Magnus has been emanating from the beginning, he finds that he can’t _stop_ noticing just how much Magnus cares about the world around him, animate or inanimate, friend or stranger.  Or, more accurately, he’s only just starting to pay closer attention to that facet of his personality.  You don’t have to be around Magnus Burnsides for long to realise that the man wears his heart on his sleeve – something Taako had instinctively shied away from at first.  His priority has always been Taako first, Lup second, with literally everyone else coming after.

…Although, he’d quietly admit that that’s been steadily changing, after spending so much time with his new.. family.  Maybe Magnus is rubbing off on him.

As a testament to his innate ‘Taako first’ proclivities, Taako starts to make mental notes of the gestures Magnus makes to take care of _him_ ; when he dives headfirst into battle to prevent harm coming to him; when he makes sure he’s all set up with supplies; even down to as small as asking how his day’s going, or the more memorable moments where Magnus provides group entertainment with his new gift.  Not that Magnus has the singing voice of bard, but on the longer, boredom inducing portions of their travels, he often takes the guitar and strums a melody as they walk, occasionally adding his own vocal.. talents.  It becomes a group activity as Lup and Taako learn to sing along with the tunes he’s playing – Lup with _far_ more enthusiasm, of course, but Taako won’t shy away from putting himself in the spotlight when he feels like it.  Not that they weren’t knee-deep in camaraderie already, but this new reason for bonding certainly doesn’t hurt. 

Maybe it’s subconscious, maybe it’s proof of how far he’s brought Magnus into his mental inner-circle, but not long after he recognises the sort of friendship Magnus is handing out on a plate here, Taako starts trying to give back.  He starts to cook dishes with Magnus’s favourite foods as the basis for his recipes; he throws himself into fights with the goal of protecting _Magnus_ in mind, even going so far as to use his precious, precious spell slots to do so.  For reasons Taako finds difficult to fathom, it’s suddenly become incredibly important to him to show Magnus that _he_ cares about him, too.  Sometimes, Taako will take himself for a mental aside, questioning what on earth has gotten into him – why he feels the need to do all this.

All it takes is for Magnus to swing the guitar off of his shoulder and pluck a melody from thin air onto the fretboard to remind him.

0o0

The stars are out, the smell wafting from Lup’s cooking is delightful, Taako’s prestidigitated fire has taken hold, and Magnus is sounding out a new melody to fill the silence.  There are definitely worse ways to camp, Taako thinks.

“Hey, homie, you think you could teach me some sweet licks on that thing?” Taako asks apropos of nothing (save maybe taking his mind off his rumbling stomach), sliding across the log he and Magnus are perched on until they’re almost side-by-side, and motioning to the guitar.

“You wanna learn guitar?” Magnus asks, wide-eyed, covering the strings with his hand to silence them.  It’s not like Taako’s ever shown any particular interest in picking up the guitar for himself before, after all.  “I mean, sure..,” a devilish glint appears in his eyes.  “.. If you think you can handle it.”  He grins, playing a single dramatic chord with a flourish of his hand.

From over by the makeshift stove, Lup looks over her shoulder at the sudden noise, and grins to herself at the tableau before her.

“ _Please_.” Taako raises one sharp eyebrow in acceptance of Magnus’s challenge.  “I got magic fingers, baby.”  He raises his hands and wiggles said fingers in the most intimidating way he can possibly muster.  He ends up looking kind of silly, but it’s a ‘fake it til you make it’ type thing, Taako’s got this; especially with a bit of prestidigitation to make sparks literally fly.  Magnus can’t help but laugh.

“Yeah.  Yeah, alright,” he grins, swinging the guitar off his shoulder and holding it out for Taako to take.  It feels like some grand gesture, like Magnus is giving away his first born or something, so Taako treats it with the respect it deserves.  He gingerly picks it up, resting it on his lap and moving his fingers to the fretboard, experimentally plucking a few of the strings.

Magnus teaches him how to play an almost insultingly easy melody that only involves a couple of the strings to start with, and on the whole Taako thinks he’s doing pretty well for the first minute or so; sounds are happening, and they aren’t damaging his ears, so that’s good.  Except -

“This -,” he says, trying not to sound as exasperated as he feels.  “Is it supposed to, like.” He brings his hand up to his face to inspect the pads of his fingers as he talks, now indented with marks from the strings, as if he’s trying to distract from the damning words.  “Hurt so bad?”

“You’re kidding,” Magnus smirks.  “I thought you had ‘magic fingers’, Taako, and now they’re hurting from like a minute of playing?”

“Shut up.  I have delicate skin, don’t hate.” He’s trying so, so hard not to pout.

“Rule number one of guitar playing: you’re gonna get calluses.” Magnus holds his own hand up as an example, where Taako can see indentations that have healed over from repeated playing.  Taako squints in distaste at the sight, followed by a heavy sigh of defeat.

“Well if I had known there was going to be _work_ and _pain_ involved, you could have counted me out right from the start, my man.  I’ll leave it to those with higher thresholds.”  He hands the guitar back over to Magnus, who grins as he takes it and props it back on his lap.

“So.. basically anyone?”

“Listen.”  Taako starts, although it turns out to be a _non-_ starter as he goes quiet for a moment, like he’s made his point with just the one word.  Instead, he looks over at Magnus and dives into a non-sequitur.  “Hey, play me something, would you?” he asks, and then proceeds to swing round and flop his head down onto Magnus’ lap without a word of warning.  Magnus manages to deftly pull the guitar away just in time for his legs to become makeshift pillows, and blinks down at his friend in confusion.  Taako raises an eyebrow in return, like, what, chaboi can’t use a bro’s legs to sleep on every once in a while?

“Uh.” Magnus hesitates.  “I kinda need my lap to play -,”

“Like hell you do, my guy.  Taako’s not moving unless Lup calls for chow time.”  Taako’s line of sight is pointed straight past Magnus and up into the night sky and all the stars blinking down at them – until he sees the guitar coming straight for his face.  “Woah, _woah_ , nope, that’s not a satisfactory solution.”

“Well, I mean, you aren’t giving me many options here.”  Magnus thinks for a moment, and then Taako feels himself being gently rolled over so he’s on his side instead – and then the weight of the guitar is on his head.  Well, it’s a slight improvement from his _face._   He sighs.  He only brought this on himself, and hey, the rumbling of the guitar as Magnus starts to strum away at some semi-familiar tune is kind of nice.  Like a really weird head massage.    

He takes a moment to seriously contemplate just how important Magnus is to him that he would let him do this.  It’s a kind of huge realisation under really unusual circumstances, but he doesn’t take the thought any further, too relaxed as he is to deal with that sort of thing right now.  As he stares absently into the flames in front of him, with the stars just barely reaching his peripheral vision, soft melody ringing out over their makeshift campsite and the smell of Lup’s nearly-done cooking tantalising them both, Taako thinks, though he’d never admit it, that he wouldn’t have things any other way.


End file.
